


you told me not to fall in love but here i am

by Anonymous



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Developing Relationship, Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M, Not Hockey Players (Hockey RPF), Single Dad Nolan, Travis still plays hockey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:07:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22323025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: He knelt down to reshelve the Clifford board books, but he’d only gotten through about half when someone turned the corner and tripped over his legs. Nolan twisted, an apology ready on his lips, and found himself face-to-face with Travis Konecny of the Philadelphia Flyers, who for some reason looked as dumbstruck to see Nolan as Nolan was to see him.Nolan recovered first and tucked his hair behind his ear. “Shit, dude, sorry. You okay?”Travis blinked at him for a couple seconds, still on his hands and knees, and Nolan really hoped that he hadn’t just given the Flyers’ star forward a concussion in his bookstore. “Yeah, sorry, man,” he said finally, talking fast. “Totally my fault, wasn’t looking.”Nolan gave him a tight smile. “No big deal.” He turned back to Clifford, but Travis cleared his throat.
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 44
Kudos: 780
Collections: Anonymous





	you told me not to fall in love but here i am

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from a song called [pull me deep](https://open.spotify.com/track/74H8tz6LeGA7sEcL3eqBG2?si=GaX7X3INRwqhNpu4j0Opxw)
> 
> this is partially an au, so lots of things about nolan's background are changed!
> 
> hope you like it :)

Nolan sighed and surveyed the children’s section, which currently looked like…well, like a couple dozen kids had just been there and ransacked the place. He liked the kids just fine—they were funny and they liked books, mostly—but by god did they leave a mess after Saturday morning story time. At least Nolan didn’t have to actually _do_ story time anymore, partly because he was the boss now, kind of, and partly because he’d been removed from story time duty years ago when some kids complained that his scary voices were too scary. He maintained that they were just _realistic_, but whatever.

He knelt down to reshelve the Clifford board books, but he’d only gotten through about half when someone turned the corner and tripped over his legs. Nolan twisted, an apology ready on his lips, and found himself face-to-face with Travis Konecny of the Philadelphia Flyers, who for some reason looked as dumbstruck to see Nolan as Nolan was to see him.

Nolan recovered first and tucked his hair behind his ear. “Shit, dude, sorry. You okay?”

Travis blinked at him for a couple seconds, still on his hands and knees, and Nolan really hoped that he hadn’t just given the Flyers’ star forward a concussion in his bookstore. “Yeah, sorry, man,” he said finally, talking fast. “Totally my fault, wasn’t looking.”

Nolan gave him a tight smile. “No big deal.” He turned back to Clifford, but Travis cleared his throat.

“Do you, uh, work here?”

Nolan gestured at the mess he was in the middle of cleaning up. “No, I’m just really polite.” Travis’s nose scrunched up in confusion, and Nolan took pity on him. “Yeah, I work here. Can I help you find something?”

“Oh my god, yes please. My cousin’s birthday is in, like, three days—well, he’s my cousin’s kid, whatever that is, relative-wise—and he’s super into books and I kinda forgot about his birthday and I know I could do Amazon or whatever, but fuck Bezos, right? Shop small and all, and I walk past this place all the time.”

That was a lot of words at one time.

“Fuck Bezos,” Nolan repeated because he could at least agree on that. Travis sat down properly, his ass right on top of a smiling sunflower on the bright multicolored carpet, and hooked his arms loosely around his knees.

“So can you help me find some books?”

“Uh, sure. How old is he, what does he like?”

“He’s four. And I have no idea what the hell he likes. Besides, like, trucks? Definitely trucks.”

“Trucks. We can work with that.” Nolan reached for a book on one of the shelves behind Travis’s head. “This is a really popular one.”

“Good Night Construction Site,” Travis read when Nolan handed it to him. “That’s cute.”

“How many do you want?” he asked, and Travis shrugged.

“Enough that I keep being his favorite.”

Nolan snorted and ran his finger along the titles of another shelf. “Does he like dogs?”

“What kind of demonic kid doesn’t like _dogs_?”

“Uh, kids that are afraid of them?”

“Solid point,” Travis admitted. “I think he does, though. Like them, I mean.”

“Try this,” Nolan said, dropping another book in Travis’s hands. “It’s about all kinds of working dogs, kids like that one.”

Travis flipped through the book. “Shit, they have dogs that can sniff out _diseases_? Maybe I need to read this.”

“We also have board books if that’s more your speed,” he said, before he remembered that he probably shouldn’t be antagonizing customers. Travis just laughed, though, and kept reading the dog book while Nolan looked for more.

He loaded him up with a half dozen or so, some good ones that weren’t _too _popular, in the hopes that his cousin didn’t already have them. The shop was kind of a zoo, so Nolan jerked his head toward an unused register in the corner of the children’s section. “Is that all you need? I can check you out over here.”

Travis followed him, chattering more about his cousin while Nolan keyed in and scanned the books. He leaned on the counter on his hands, and Nolan resolutely did not look at his forearms, exposed where he’d pushed up the sleeves of his hoodie.

“Thanks so much, dude,” he said when Nolan handed over the bag. “You totally saved me, seriously.”

“No problem, thanks for coming in. Fuck Bezos, right?”

Travis laughed then hesitated for half a second before finally turning toward the door with a little wave. Nolan tried not to watch him walk away, fiddling with the register instead, and his cousin Janie came up to him, leaning against his shoulder. “Was that—”

“Yep.”

“What’d he buy?”

“Some books for his kid cousin.”

She hummed. “Good thing you’re wearing those jeans today, they’re good for your ass.”

“What, why were you looking at my ass?”

“Ew, gross. I was looking at _him_ because he’s fucking hot, and _he_ was definitely looking at your ass.”

Nolan ignored the second part of that sentence. “You’re 17.”

“So? I can still think he’s hot.”

Nolan grimaced. “You’re my baby cousin, that makes me feel old.”

“You are old.”

“I’m 24.” Fucking kids. “Go finish picking up the children’s section.”

“Not until you admit he was checking you out.”

“He was not. You’re not a good judge of this, you think Mrs. Patterson is flirting with me every week, too.”

“She _is_,” Janie exclaimed. “She might be 85, but she wants your ass.”

“Please stop talking about my ass.”

“Well, Travis fuckin’ Konecny wants a piece of it.”

“He absolutely was not checking me out,” Nolan said because that was a fucking ridiculous thought. “And even if he was, which he wasn’t, I don’t date. You know that.”

“_Still_? Nolan, it’s been like, three years.”

“So?”

“But you—”

“Children’s section,” Nolan said, putting on his best _boss_ voice. It was pretty good. “Go.”

Janie rolled her eyes but finally flounced off. Nolan leaned his forehead on the counter and tried valiantly to forget the last 20 minutes.

* * *

“It’s Saturday, where’s your boy?”

“First of all, he’s not _my_ boy in literally any way.” Nolan flipped a page in his book. He wasn’t working this morning, technically, so he was hanging out behind the counter of the little bakery and cafe that was attached to the bookstore and waiting for the cinnamon rolls to be done. “Second of all, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Hasn’t he been in here, like, three Saturdays in a row?”

“I don’t know,” Nolan lied. “I haven’t been keeping track.”

Janie gave him a look. “Right, right. And who did he need a book for last time? Like, his aunt’s hairdresser or something like that?”

“It was his friend’s wife. To bring to a housewarming party.”

“_Dude_,” Janie said, with feeling. “He’s literally inventing reasons to come here and buy books from you.”

“He likes the store! Supporting a small business. Fuck Bezos, you know.”

“We should sell bookmarks that say Fuck Bezos, we’d probably make a fortune.”

“Yeah, and we’d probably get sued somehow,” Nolan said. “Anyway, that’s what he said.”

“You’re so dumb.”

“You’re just mad you weren’t here last week when Carter Hart came with him.”

“I knowwww,” she whined. “Fuck you two, _we_ could’ve been the hot hockey romance that this store needs.”

“God, Janie, he’s like, my age I think.”

“I’m almost 18!” she protested.

“That’s not as good of an argument as you think it is.”

“You are so—”

“Hi.”

Nolan ignored the swoop of his traitorous stomach and turned away from Janie. Travis was standing there, with his objectively bad facial hair that somehow kind of worked for him anyway, which was a contradiction Nolan preferred not to examine. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Janie echoed. “I’m J—”

A timer in the kitchen went off, and Nolan smiled at her as blandly as he could. “Whoops. Better go get those.”

Janie gave him the kind of eye roll only a teenage girl could muster.

“Hi,” he said again, to Travis. “Who’re you shopping for today?”

Travis laughed a little and braced his elbows on the counter, leaning over it a little. “No one.”

Regardless of what Janie thought, Nolan was not actually an idiot. Travis did keep coming in, did keep finding Nolan, did keep grinning up at him and like, touching his arm or whatever, as if he’d read the latest _How To Flirt With A Boy You Like_ article in Teen Vogue. So he probably thought Nolan was hot, at least, and probably wouldn’t turn down a hookup. Too bad Nolan didn’t have the emotional energy for that in his life right now, and there was no way a guy like Travis would want anything more than that with a guy like Nolan and his whole situation.

“She really liked the books, though, it went over well. Except I think I got invited to join some kind of book club, so.” He smiled, and Nolan had no idea where this was going. “Anyway, I just wanted to come by and say thanks.”

“Oh.” Nolan closed his book and set it aside so he wasn’t tempted to fiddle with it. “That’s, uh, not really necessary. I mean, it is my job.”

“Still. You, um—any chance you like the Flyers?”

“Nolan loves the Flyers,” Janie said suddenly as she passed behind him with a tray of cinnamon rolls, fresh from the oven. “He knows who you are.”

Well. Now Nolan’s chill had thoroughly evaporated. “Janie,” he hissed.

Travis was grinning, though, and his gaze was stuck on the cinnamon rolls as Janie slid them into the display case. “Those smell amazing.”

“Our grandmother’s recipe, they’re really good,” she said.

Nolan reached for a plate and plucked one off the tray, warm enough that his fingertips stung. Travis looked surprised when Nolan slid it toward him, as if he hadn’t just been practically drooling on the counter, but he took a bite anyway.

“Shit, that is good. I shouldn’t eat all this by myself, though.” Travis pushed the plate toward Nolan, who pinched a piece off the side.

“We bookstore workers have no such problems.”

Travis snorted. “But you, uh—” He waved his fork in Nolan’s general direction and didn’t seem any closer to landing on the words he wanted to use. Nolan just lifted his eyebrows, letting Travis flounder.

“You don’t look like you eat a lot of cinnamon rolls,” he said, finally. “Is what I meant.”

“Thanks, I think.” Nolan popped another bite in his mouth and licked the frosting off his thumb. “You want a coffee, too?”

“Uh—sure, that’d be great.”

Nolan hopped off his stool, happy to do something else besides sit there and try not to stare at Travis’s shoulders. “How do you like it?”

“A little cream and sugar. How much do I—”

“On the house, don’t worry about it.”

Travis rolled his eyes but slid a twenty across the counter anyway when Nolan came back with his coffee. Nolan slid it right back. “Dude,” Travis complained. “I came here to _thank_ you, you’re screwing it up.”

“Sorry. You can get back to that now, I guess.”

“Well, now that I know you like the Flyers,” he said, then grinned when Nolan rolled his eyes. “You should come to a game, I’ll get you tickets.”

Like, _yes_, but—

“I appreciate it, but that’s really not necessary. Like I said, I was just doing my job.”

“C’mon, dude,” Travis said, through another bite of cinnamon roll. “Is there like, a bookstore code of ethics that prevents you from accepting a thank you?”

Nolan stole Travis’s coffee and took a sip just to see what his face would do. It didn’t disappoint. “No.”

“Then you should, c’mon. Please come. Home opener’s on Wednesday, and we also play on Friday. Either of those work?”

Nolan ate more cinnamon roll as he thought about it. “Friday. Could, um—is there any way I could have two?”

Travis blinked at him for a second and then nodded. “Yeah, totally.” He took his coffee back from Nolan and had another sip. “Course, dude, bring your—bring whoever. I’ll leave ‘em at will call. What’s your last name?”

“Patrick.”

Travis tilted his head. “Like…like Patrick and Sons? The name of this place?”

“Yeah, that Patrick was my granddad.”

“Shit. So you’re, like, the boss.”

“Someday, yeah. My parents still mostly run the place right now.”

“I feel less bad about the free pastries then.” Travis pointed at the cinnamon roll. “So am I gonna get any more of that, or—”

Nolan rolled his eyes and shoved the plate at him.

* * *

“Eve!” Nolan called out. As soon as her feet had touched the ground out of the car, she made a beeline toward the arena, and he had to jog to keep up. “You gotta hold my hand, okay? There’s a lot of people around.”

“I promise, Noley,” she said, slipping her little hand into his. She was practically vibrating with excitement and had been ever since Nolan woke her up that morning and told her that they were going to the game.

Getting the tickets was easy—as soon as Nolan showed his ID, the guy at will call handed over an envelope with _Nolan_ scrawled on the front. Inside there were two tickets, some kind of friends and family pass, and a folded piece of paper.

_Enjoy the game, use the pass and come down afterward to say hi. —Travis_

Nolan carefully refolded the note and put it in his pocket. “You ready, Evie?”

“Yes!” Eve yelled. “I hope we see Gritty.”

“Me too,” Nolan lied. That thing creeped him out, but Eve was kind of obsessed.

They were early enough that the Flyers were still warming up, and Nolan wormed his way down to a spot on the glass because Eve wanted to see better. He wasn’t expecting any kind of recognition from Travis, but after a couple minutes he skated right up to them with a wave—and if he was surprised to see Nolan with a six-year-old, he hid it really well.

Eve waved back, thoroughly delighted, and nearly cried with joy when he tossed her a puck. Nolan couldn’t _not_ smile at that, and Travis rapped the glass once with his stick before skating away.

“TK gave me a puck! Do you think he saw my jersey?” she asked as they made their way to their seats. She’d even insisted on wearing her jersey to school that day.

“I bet he did,” Nolan said because he hadn’t yet figured out how to tell Eve that he was maybe friends with her hockey hero.

Eve nearly screamed herself hoarse when Travis scored a goal, then took a quick catnap during the second intermission—Nolan had no idea _how_, with all the noise, kids never ceased to amaze him—and rallied for the third.

The Flyers won, and after the game was over, Nolan found someone to show them where to go with their pass, some kind of big waiting area near the locker room. “Where are we?” Eve asked while they waited, looking up in wonder at a giant decal of Gritty attached to the wall.

“You wanna meet TK?” he asked, and her jaw dropped.

“Really?” she said quietly.

“Yeah, I think so.”

Travis came out then, in his suit and smoothing down his still-damp hair. He spotted them immediately and grinned. “Hey, man, thanks for coming.”

“Thanks for the tickets, she—” Nolan looked down, but Eve was currently hiding behind his legs. “Evie. Why are you being shy, don’t you want to say hello to your favorite player?”

He picked her up, but she just buried her face into his shoulder. “That’s a pretty cool jersey,” Travis tried, and she gave him a tiny smile.

“It has your name on it!”

Travis twisted a little to see it and feigned surprise. “Wow, it does!”

“My gramy and grampy gave it to me for my birthday last month.”

“Sweet gift. How old are you now?”

“Six!”

He pointed at the puck that she hadn’t let go of for the past three hours. “Didn’t I throw that to you? You want me to sign it for you?” he asked, and Eve nodded wildly. She held it out, and Travis smiled as he dug a Sharpie out of his pocket. “Your name is Evie?”

“No, only Nolan calls me that. My name is Eve. E-v-e.”

“E-v-e,” Travis repeated dutifully as he signed the puck. When he handed it back to her, she looked like the physical embodiment of the heart-eyes emoji. “Is Nolan your big brother?”

“Noooo,” she said, drawing out the word. “He’s like my daddy. My mommy and daddy died when I was a baby, and now Nolan’s my daddy. I usually call him Nolan, but sometimes daddy. The doctor says that’s normal,” she added matter-of-factly.

“Oh,” Travis said, blinking. He looked a little shellshocked, as most people did when Eve spilled their entire life story in one breath.

“I’m, uh, her uncle. Technically,” Nolan said. “But yeah.”

Eve twisted in Nolan’s arms so that her back was to Travis. “Sign my jersey, too.”

“Evie,” Nolan admonished. “Don’t be rude.”

She threw a _pleaseeeee_ over her shoulder, and Travis grinned. He had to step closer, right into Nolan’s space, to sign it, and Nolan’s gaze drifted down to where his loosely-tied tie was causing his shirt collar to gape a little. He smelled really fucking good, but Nolan only allowed himself one regular inhale, like a normal fucking person.

Regrettably, Travis stepped back as he capped his pen and tucked it back into his pocket. “I’m hungry and was gonna get some dinner, you guys wanna come? There’s a pretty chill place not too far from here.”

Eve looked at him with that smile that he wasn’t very good at resisting, despite years of practice. “Can we, Noley?”

It probably wasn’t the _best_ idea, for many reasons, but—

“Sure,” he said, and she grinned.

“I get to stay up past my bedtime,” she told Travis, “because it’s a special occasion. I learned that word today.”

“Special occasion, eh?” he asked, and Nolan set her down since that her shyness seemed to have evaporated. “Wow, you’re tall.”

“Almost as tall as you.”

Travis mimed being stabbed, and Nolan smiled.

\------

When they met back up at the restaurant, Travis had lost the jacket and tie and unfastened the top few buttons of his shirt. Nolan still felt underdressed next to him in his jeans, but at least the place was pretty casual. They had a kids’ menu, but Eve only looked at it for 10 seconds before she shook her head.

“I don’t want it, I’m not hungry.”

Nolan looked down at her. “You mean you wanna eat half of whatever I order instead?” he asked, and she giggled as she pressed her face to his arm.

Sure enough, Eve ate a decent portion of his burger and fries, then abandoned the meal mid-bite to climb into Nolan’s nap and close her eyes.

“Is she asleep?” Travis whispered, after a minute. “Can I curse now?”

Nolan craned his head to check, but she was out cold. “Yeah, you’re safe. Sorry, I probably should’ve warned you that I was bringing her.”

“No way, dude, she’s hilarious. What a fuckin’ great kid.”

Nolan didn’t think he’d ever get used to the rush of pride he felt whenever someone complimented Eve in any way. “Yeah, she really is. Thanks again for the tickets, she had a great time.”

“Does she play?”

Nolan shrugged. “She loves watching hockey and she loves to skate, but she’s never expressed an interest in actually playing. So I haven’t pushed it.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you like hockey?”

Nolan huffed a laugh. “Yeah. I like hockey, I can play a little.”

“Beer league?”

He shook his head. “Single parenting doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for hobbies.”

“I get extra ice time sometimes, you guys should come.”

“That could be fun,” Nolan admitted. He and Eve went to the outdoor rinks once they opened, but he hadn’t been as proactive as he probably should’ve been at finding them indoor ice time.

“Good,” Travis said, looking pleased.

When the waitress came by, Nolan quickly got his credit card out with the hand that wasn’t holding Eve.

“Wait—what the fuck, no,” Travis said, fumbling for his own wallet. “I’m the one who asked you to dinner.”

“You got us the tickets.”

“Hang on, please,” Travis said to the waitress.

“No, take mine,” Nolan said. He flashed her his best smile, and she laughed a little as she took the credit card out of his hand. Travis rolled his eyes but put his wallet back in his pocket.

“Guess I owe you one.”

“Guess so.”

Travis’s gaze was on the warm side of friendly, if Nolan was being honest, and he didn’t really know what to do with it. He figured that Travis’s interest, as superficial as it likely was, would wane once he knew there was a kid in the picture, and he didn’t how to handle it if that _wasn’t_ the case.

They’d parked near each other, and Travis hesitated before he turned toward his car.

“So. Can I take you out for that dinner I owe you?”

Fuck. It was a more pressing problem than Nolan thought.

“Um.”

Travis’s face fell a little, and Nolan felt about five times worse.

“Can I—can I think about it?” he said. Travis looked a little surprised, and Nolan didn’t blame him, he couldn’t imagine he got that reaction a lot when he asked people out. Nolan nodded at Eve, still sleeping. “It’s just…complicated, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah, totally.” Travis rocked on his heels a little, his hands stuffed into his pockets, but he didn’t look too fazed. _Obviously, you egomaniac_, Nolan told himself. “And I wasn’t kidding about that skating thing. If you want to, I mean.”

“Yeah, I’m sure Eve would love it. Here, lemme get your number.”

Nolan shifted Eve to free an arm to get his phone, but Travis held his hand out, his phone already in his hand. “Just give me yours.”

Nolan recited his number and watched Travis put it into his phone, his tongue just peeking out the corner of his mouth. His own phone vibrated in his back pocket a second later, and Nolan’s hand went to it automatically. “Got it.”

“Good to know you didn’t give me a fake one, had to check.”

Travis was grinning. “Damn, didn’t think of that,” Nolan said, and Travis’s mouth opened in outrage.

* * *

After the third time Eve dropped the book because she was too drowsy, Nolan snorted and gently took it away from her, setting it on the floor. He missed reading to her as much as he used to, but it was pretty cool that she liked to read to him instead.

He turned her bedside lamp off and started to ease himself out of bed, but her grip on his shirt tightened. “No,” she said under her breath, her eyes still closed. “Stay.”

“Okay, baby girl.” He smoothed a hand over her hair and settled back against the headboard. “A little bit longer, until you fall asleep.”

Eve fell quiet again and Nolan yawned. He shouldn’t actually sleep here, it was a bad habit, but he could at least close his eyes for a minute. His phone buzzed before he could actually drift off, and he slowly slid it out of his pocket, careful not to jostle Eve.

Nolan had fully expected to never hear from Travis again, after he’d awkwardly turned him down last weekend, but they texted a lot. The day after the game Nolan had agonized for a solid 12 hours over what to say—he figured he should be the one to send the first text, after the whole aforementioned rejection thing—but only ended up with something lame about one of the books he’d recommended. It had worked, though, Travis texted back nearly right away, and they’d never really stopped.

_I can get ice time Thursday afternoon, does that work for you guys?_

_This is NOT a date_

_Or a bribe of any kind_

_Pinky swear_

_I pick her up from school at 3:30_

_4 works_

Travis sent an address, and Nolan laid his phone on his chest, staring at the ceiling.

* * *

Nolan hadn’t been so nervous to get on the ice since he was a kid, probably.

_Stop being dumb_, he told himself as he tied his skates. Eve was on the bench next to him, and Travis knelt in front of her, tightening her laces. Nolan was always the one who tied her skates, but he supposed he couldn’t blame her for asking Travis to do it instead. He probably would’ve too, if he could’ve gotten away with it.

“Tight enough?” Travis asked her, and Eve wiggled her feet.

“Yep!”

Travis stepped onto the ice and Nolan followed him, exhaling as he skated in a tight circle. He’d always felt at home on the ice, and even though he didn’t skate as often anymore, muscle memory was a beautiful thing.

Travis held his hands out for Eve, as if to catch her as she stepped down onto the ice, and Nolan bit his lip to hold back a smile. Eve clomped toward the door in her skates, hopped easily down onto the ice, and swerved away from Travis in a neat move.

“Holy shit,” Travis said as he watched her skate away.

“Bad word,” she called out over her shoulder.

_Fuck_, he mouthed at Nolan, and he just lifted his eyebrows.

Eve was halfway across the rink already, and Nolan trailed behind Travis as he skated after her.

“Who taught you how to skate, missy?”

“Nolan did! He’s really good, he used to play in the, um, the duh—whatsitcalled?”

“The WHL,” Nolan supplied.

“Oh, did he now?” Travis spun easily on his skates, looking at him with interest. Nolan tried not to look back. He’d spent too many years playing hockey with disgusting teenage boys to find anything about hockey attractive in any way, but Travis skating around in jeans and a hoodie was enough to threaten his entire belief system.

“How do you do that?” Eve asked Travis.

“Do what?”

“Go backward.”

So Travis very patiently taught Eve how to skate backward, and that did not help the swoopy thing that Nolan’s stomach had started going all the damn time.

While Eve was taking off her skates—“I can do it my_self_” had become a familiar refrain in his world the last several months—Nolan seized the opportunity to skate a few fast laps on his own. It felt good, digging into the ice with the cold air burning a little in his lungs. He needed to find more time to skate.

Travis skated up next to him, keeping up easily with his shorter strides, and bumped their shoulders together gently. “So is it the hockey thing?”

“Is what the hockey thing?”

“Why you don’t want to date me.”

“I—god.” Nolan’s face felt hot, but Travis didn’t look as embarrassed as he should’ve been by referencing someone that supposedly didn’t want to date him. “First of all, I never actually said that.”

“So you’re saying there’s a chance!” he crowed with a grin.

“This isn’t…I dunno, I’m not, like, playing games or whatever.”

“I know,” Travis said, his face smoothing out. “I didn’t—I can stop, if you want. Joking about it.”

Nolan didn’t know what to say to that. “I just haven’t dated a lot recently,” he said. _At all_, actually. “Trying to, uh, get used to the idea.”

“So I don’t have to stop asking?” he asked, the little half-smile creeping back onto his face.

“Noley!” Eve yelled, and Nolan came to a sharp stop in front of the bench, showering Travis with snow.

“You ready to go?”

She nodded and yawned. “M’hungry.”

\------

That night, after he put Eve to bed, Nolan found his phone and saw a text from Travis.

_That was fun, thanks Noley_

_Don’t call me that, daughter privilege only_

Travis sent back a line of the emojis with the halos, and Nolan shook his head with a little snort. They’d gone out to dinner after skating, even though it’d been barely past five, and Eve continued to be fascinated by Travis, asking him question after question about playing hockey and growing up in Canada and anything else she should could possibly think of. Travis hadn’t seemed put out in the least—though Nolan was well-aware kids her age could be a little overwhelming—and engaged her enough that Nolan was often the odd person out in the conversation.

He took a deep breath and very carefully tapped out a response.

_So is that dinner invite still open?_

* * *

“Is this when I get to say _I told you so_?”

Nolan kept staring into his closet and didn’t look at Janie. “No.”

“I did, though.”

“Should I wear this shirt or that one?”

“I’ll pick an outfit for you if you let me say it.”

Nolan rifled through his shirts. “You already said it. And I can pick my own outfit.”

“Where are you going?”

“Some steakhouse downtown. Should I wear jeans?”

“No.” Janie shoved him aside. “Where are those nice slacks you have? The gray ones.”

“In the back on the left. No tie, though, right?”

“Definitely no tie. Um…try this shirt.” She pointed to a light blue one, and Nolan obediently pulled it off the hanger. “And then your brown shoes. Done.”

“Fine. Thank you,” he added grudgingly.

He got dressed, and in the living room, Eve looked up from her coloring book and smiled at him. “You look pretty, daddy, where’re you going?”

He bent to kiss her head. “Thanks, baby girl. I’m just going to have dinner with some friends.”

“Will you be back to tuck me in?”

“Probably not. I’ll be here when you wake up, though, and I’ll come give you a kiss when I get back.”

“Promise?”

“Pinky promise.” He kissed her again and hooked his pinky around hers when she held it out. “Have fun with Janie, be good.”

Janie followed Nolan to the door and lingered while he pocketed his wallet and his phone. “I told you so,” she said under her breath.

“You are such a teenager.” He paused with one hand on the doorknob. “And this is such a bad idea.”

“No it’s _not_, stop that,” Janie said. “Seriously. It’s going to be fine. Tell him I say hi.”

“I will not be doing that.”

“Seriously, though, have fun. Proud of you.”

Nolan wasn’t touching that. He looked out the window next to the door, at Travis’s car idling at the curb. Shit.

Janie nearly shoved him out the door, and Nolan tried to remember how to breathe evenly as he walked down the path. He felt like he was in high school or something, getting picked up for a date by the captain of the football team. Which was certainly not a thing that ever fucking happened, Jesus.

Though he had the dating experience of a high schooler, probably. There were always girls around when he was living up in Canada for hockey, but he hadn’t really dated any of them. He didn’t really date much in college, either, where the only “dating” anyone really did was like, going to the library to study together and then hooking up in someone’s twin extra long. _Maybe_ a trip to the frozen yogurt place on the edge of campus. Not in the same stratosphere as whatever this was.

Travis didn’t get out of the car to open his door or anything, thank fucking god, and just smiled when Nolan got in the car. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He looked nice, open-necked white shirt, and Nolan wasn’t sure whether he should say that or not.

“So I finally wore you down, eh?”

Nolan flushed and glanced out the window. “Lucky you,” he said, and Travis laughed.

“Who’s watching Eve?”

“She can stay by herself,” Nolan said, as mild as he can. He looked over at Travis, whose brow was furrowed, his mouth half-open like he was thinking of what to say. Nolan allowed himself to crack half a smile, and Travis groaned. “You believed me.”

“I did _not_!” Travis protested. “I just—I don’t know _that_ much about kids, okay.”

“Well, lesson one, six is too young to stay home alone.”

“Fuck you,” Travis muttered under his breath, and Nolan smirked.

“My cousin Janie’s watching her. She and Evie are pretty close, and she’s a senior in high school, so she’s always happy for babysitting money.”

“Oh yeah, I think I met her at the store once.”

“Unfortunately yes. She says hi,” Nolan admitted.

The restaurant they ended up at was uncomfortably fancy, white tablecloths and all, and Nolan kind of wished he’d worn a tie. And probably a jacket, honestly. He waited in the crowded reception area, his elbow bumping up against a woman in a very shiny cocktail dress, until Travis came back from the hostess’s stand with a grimace on his face.

“Okay, so.” He stood close, and Nolan had to tip his head down to hear him. “I meant to make a reservation but, because I’m a fucking idiot, I totally forgot. And there’s a 45 minute wait. I could try the whole _but I play for the Flyers _thing, but that’s kind of gross.”

“Please don’t do that,” Nolan said quickly, and Travis laughed.

“So we can wait, or we can walk around and look for something else.”

“Let’s go somewhere else,” he suggested, touching Travis’s elbow, and he was pretty sure Travis looked relieved.

“Thank fuck,” he said as soon as they got outside, shuddering. “That is not my kind of place.”

“Then why’d you want to go there?”

“Gotta impress you, dude.”

Nolan faltered. _You impressed me by being nice to my kid_, he wanted to say.

“You don’t need to impress me,” he said instead. “And even if you did, that restaurant wouldn’t work.”

They found a place down the street that was less crowded and had a better vibe—cozy, almost, with giant ceilings and overstuffed benches and lots of wood and leather. The only seats available were at the bar, but Nolan was secretly relieved because that meant he didn’t have to look Travis in the eye. It _did_ mean he had to sit close, close enough that their elbows bumped constantly, sometimes their knees, and he wasn’t sure that was better.

Travis opened his menu and leaned close enough that their shoulders touched. “Looks like they do the whole small plate thing, wanna share some?”

“Sure. That cauliflower thing looks good.” Travis made a face. “You’re worse than Eve. Cauliflower’s actually good, I bet you’ll like it.”

“What a dad thing to say,” he said, grinning, and Nolan rolled his eyes.

“So I googled you,” Travis said, after they ordered—he acquiesced on the cauliflower—and Nolan fiddled with his napkin, smoothing it over his lap.

“Yeah?”

“Couldn’t resist, after Eve said you played in the Dub.” Travis reached for his water and bumped their elbows together. “You were pretty good.”

“Yeah,” Nolan admitted.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

It was mostly because the look on his face _wasn’t_ pitying—Nolan hated those—that he nodded. “No, it’s fine.” He took a long drag of his beer for courage. “I, uh, it was my draft year, and I was injured, which sucked. And then in December, Mikey and Olivia died.”

“Shit,” Travis breathed. “So Eve really was just a baby.”

“Yeah, only a few months. I was really…I mean, Mikey was my best friend. We were super close. I was the person they had put in their will to take care of her if anything happened.” Nolan had to stop and drink more beer to swallow past the lump in his throat. “Because people never think that will actually _happen_.”

“You were only what, 18?”

“Yeah. I quit hockey and moved home because I was just—we were having a really hard time. The whole family. Obviously. There was no way I could’ve gotten custody of Eve then, so she went to my parents and I went to college. I managed to finish in three years, then when I was 21 I became her guardian.”

“Fuck.”

Nolan avoided meeting Travis’s gaze and shifted in his chair. “Sorry for like, bringing the mood down.”

“I mean, I asked. That’s amazing.”

Nolan shrugged. “I did what anyone would’ve done.”

“I don’t think that’s true at all,” he said, and Nolan _really_ wished they had their food so he had something to do besides fiddle with his beer bottle. “So, she’s like—your kid. For real.”

Nolan nodded. “Adopted her last year, that’s more permanent.”

“Wow, that’s awesome.” His smile faded as he leaned in a little. “I’m really sorry about your brother.”

Nolan never knew what to say to that. “Thanks.”

“I can’t—” Travis shook his head. “My brother and I are close, too, I can’t imagine.”

“I hope you don’t have to,” he said, and Travis winced.

“Do you have other siblings?”

“Yeah, I have a younger sister. She just started med school.”

“Wow. What’d you major in at university?”

“Accounting. Kinda boring, but,” Nolan shrugged, “helps with the store.”

“I mean, hey, you’re talking to a guy who barely graduated high school, so.”

Their food came then, and later, when the bartender dropped off the bill, Travis forcibly kept him from reaching for his wallet, with a hand tight around his wrist. Nolan tried not to get horny about it and mostly failed.

“My turn,” he said lowly before finally letting go, and Nolan swallowed.

“Fine.”

Travis kept touching him on the walk back to his car, his hand on Nolan’s elbow and on his back, so Nolan shouldn’t have been surprised when Travis held his hip, rocked up on his toes, and kissed him.

It was _good_, objectively, but Nolan’s mind was kind of reeling, spinning through all the reasons why this still might be a bad idea, and Travis grimaced when he pulled back.

“Holy shit.” There was a wry little smile on Travis’s face, and his fingers came up to touch Nolan’s cheek. “Wow, that is _not_ the face you want to see after you kiss someone. Fuck. The kiss wasn’t that bad, was it?”

Nolan couldn’t hold back a snort. “No, like, the fucking opposite. Jesus.” Travis’s body relaxed a little against him, but his face was still creased with worry. “It’s just that…I, uh—fuck, I don’t know how to say this.”

“If you’re gonna break my heart, let’s just get it over with, please.”

Nolan shook his head. This was—fucking surreal.

“I haven’t…ever since Evie, I haven’t really dated anyone and I don’t know if I—”

“That makes sense.” Travis nodded, his face closing off. He pressed his lips together and then sucked his lower lip into his mouth. “I totally get it, dude. I mean, it sucks, but—”

Nolan’s arm had found its way around Travis’s waist, somehow, and he shook him gently. “Stop it, let me finish a fucking sentence.”

“Okay, sorry, sorry.”

“It’s just.” Nolan took a breath and tried to figure out how to be honest without being _too_ honest. “I haven’t dated anyone since I got Evie, and I don’t really…know how it works. She comes first, obviously, and it would have to be—slow.”

“That’s fine,” Travis said quickly, and Nolan couldn’t help but smile at him.

“Think about it for more than two seconds.”

“I have. I mean, I obviously knew you had a daughter.”

“Not when you kept coming into the store,” Nolan said, an eyebrow quirked, but Travis just smiled, utterly shameless.

“No. But I did before I asked you out for real,” Travis countered. Nolan tilted his head in a tacit admission. “Do you want me to…you know, not see her or whatever?”

Nolan shook his head. “I think it’s fine. I mean, she knows you, she likes you.”

“That’s cause I’m very likable,” he said with a smirk, and Nolan tugged on his jacket.

“But I probably won’t, like, tell her. For a little while.”

“Whatever you want,” Travis said with a nod. “So…yeah?”

Nolan hummed, just to watch Travis squirm. “Yeah.”

He turned them around, caging Travis in against the car, and kissed him like he’d been thinking about ever since, if Nolan was being honest, he saw him sprawled across the floor of his bookstore. Nolan tried to keep it gentle, but then Travis kind of melted against him and hooked an arm around his neck, and, well. He couldn’t resist tightening his grip and slanting his mouth until Travis was panting.

Travis looked dazed when he pulled back. “Now that face is better,” he said, thumbing at Nolan’s lip. Nolan bit at it.

“I should go home, I pinky promised someone a good night kiss.”

“Funny, I don’t remember making a pinky promise.”

Nolan rolled his eyes and shoved him toward the driver’s side door.

* * *

So Nolan had a boyfriend.

* * *

Not that much changed about his life, actually. He went to work, took care of Eve, went to the gym, spent time with his family. Nolan had meant it about taking it slow with Travis, but it turned out that was pretty much the default when dealing with the schedule of a six-year-old and the schedule of an NHL player.

They got together whenever they could, some dinners and the occasional lunch when Travis was free and Nolan could get away from work. It wasn’t too often that Travis had an off day in town on the weekend, but when he did they would do something with Eve, go to the children’s museum or the zoo. He seemed to actually enjoy her company, which made Nolan’s heart, apparently soft as fuck, feel all flippy and weird.

Nolan was still kind of…not _hesitant_ about the whole thing, not exactly, just cautious. He didn’t totally understand why Travis wanted to be with him of all people, when he had a daughter and wasn’t that available. Especially considering the lack of sex in their relationship, thanks to the aforementioned scheduling problems. Nolan was jerking off more than he did when he was a teenager.

They got close a couple times, including one night when Travis came over for dinner and then climbed into Nolan’s lap on the couch after Eve went to bed. They got in a solid 15 minutes of making out, Travis’s weight heavy across Nolan’s thighs and his hand tight in his hair, until Eve woke up screaming from a nightmare.

“Cutest cockblock in town,” Nolan said with a pat to his thigh, and Travis laughed into his neck. He groaned as Nolan dumped him off to the side, and Nolan smiled.

It didn’t take long to get Eve soothed and back to sleep, and Nolan found Travis in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher.

“Is she okay?”

“Yeah,” Nolan said. “It’s a recurring thing with a ghost, but we checked in the closet and under the bed and she’s all good.”

Travis laughed. “I’m gonna go,” he said, wiping his hands on a towel. “Practice in the morning then we’re leaving, so I gotta pack.”

“K.” Nolan caught him around the waist and nosed at his cheek until Travis tipped his head up to kiss him. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

Nolan shrugged. _Putting up with us_, he thought but didn’t say.

After he left, Nolan promptly locked his bedroom door, stripped down, and got a hand around his dick. It was so easy with the memories so fresh, of Travis’s fingers on his neck and his tongue in his mouth and his ass under Nolan’s hand, and he bit back a noise as he came.

In a fit of delusion, probably, Nolan twisted and grabbed his phone off the nightstand. It wasn’t a dick pic, he rationalized, as he took a picture of his stomach, streaked with come. They hadn’t done anything like this before, but Nolan still felt a little bad about the whole cockblocking situation. Also, he wasn’t _not _vain, and his abs looked nice in the picture.

He texted it to Travis before he could overthink it, deleted the photo, then stuffed his phone under his pillow and went to take a shower.

When he got back into bed, for real this time, there were a bunch of texts from Travis. Nolan had to just stare at the little notification bubble for a second, his cheeks hot, before he could make himself open them.

_What the fuckkkk_

_Holy shit dude_

_I KNEW you didn’t eat a lot of cinnamon rolls_

_You’re gonna kill me_

He sent a few photos of his own, more explicit than Nolan’s had been, and Nolan exhaled slowly through his nose as he idly rubbed at his dick. He was mostly hard again, and it didn’t take long until he was all the way there. He sent another picture, just the bulge in his briefs, and got a drool emoji in response.

_Again? Jeez_

_I’m younger than you, remember_

_Fuck you_

_Anytime_

He got a keysmash in return, and Nolan smirked.

* * *

The doorbell rang one Saturday morning, and from the kitchen Nolan could hear the little thumps of Eve’s feet running for the door.

“Can I open it?”

“No!” Nolan yelled back. “Wait for me.”

“But it’s TK, I can see out the window!”

Nolan frowned and drained the last of his coffee. He stepped out of the kitchen and saw Travis in the foyer and Eve spinning, the skirt of her dress fluffing up around her.

“_Wow_, look at that pretty dress,” he said to her, then nodded at Nolan. “Hey, sorry for just, like, stopping by. Practice got cancelled last-minute for a surprise day off, so I thought I might see what you guys were up to.”

“Today is the anniversary,” Eve said cheerfully. _Anniversary_ was the new word she learned that morning.

“The anniversary of what?”

“Of my mommy and daddy. We go to the cetemery today.”

“Cemetery,” Nolan corrected. _Of when they died_, he mouthed at Travis.

“You should come with us!” Eve said, and Nolan put his hands on her shoulders before Travis could say anything.

“Why don’t you go brush your hair, bug, then we can go.”

“Will you braid it?” she asked, and he nodded.

They both watched her scamper toward her bedroom, then Travis cleared his throat. “I understand, obviously, if the answer’s no, but I’ll totally come.”

“I—” Nolan hesitated. “She’s, uh…it’s not gonna be a fun time. She’s fine now, but she gets pretty upset.”

Travis shrugged and smoothed out a wrinkle in their welcome mat with his shoe. “Like I said. Happy to be there for her, and you.”

“Daddy, I’m ready,” Eve called out from the living room. She was in her customary hair braiding spot, on the floor in front of the couch, and Nolan sat behind her.

“You want one or two?”

“Just one please.”

“You got it.”

Travis sat on the floor next to her, and she reached out to tug on his hair. “You should have daddy braid your hair, too, it’s long enough,” she said, and he laughed.

“Would it look nice, you think?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Can TK come today? We get pancakes afterward,” she told him, and it was mostly because Travis didn’t say anything, just looked at Nolan instead, that Nolan nodded.

“Sure,” he said as he tied the end of her braid and kissed the top of her head.“Get your shoes on, let’s go.”

He felt kind of guilty about it on the drive over, for both Eve’s and Travis’s sakes, but tried not to dwell on it.

Cemeteries creeped him out, even though it was a beautiful day, cold and sunny, and as they walked the familiar path, he pulled his jacket tighter around himself.

Nolan sat down, the grass cold under his jeans, and Eve clambered onto his lap after she set the bouquet of flowers they’d brought against her mother’s grave.

“Can I see the pictures?”

“Sure.” Nolan got his phone out of his pocket and navigated to the folder that had a few photos of Mikey and Olivia from the day Eve was born. He handed the phone to Eve so she could flip through them, and Travis leaned closer to see.

“Oh my god, what a baby,” Travis said, then elbowed Nolan in the side. “I’m talking about you, by the way.”

“I was a baby, too,” Eve said.

“Cutest baby I’ve ever seen,” Travis said, and Eve giggled.

“Mommy was so pretty,” she said, and Nolan nodded.

“She was.”

“She doesn’t really look like me, though.”

“You definitely got the Patrick genes,” Travis said. “Nol, you look _just_ like your brother, wow.”

“I miss them,” Eve said, starting to cry, and Nolan kissed the top of her head.

“I know, sweetie.”

Nolan held her little body, shaking with the force of her sobs, and felt the sympathetic pressure build behind his own eyes. God, he hated this. If it were just up to him, they would never come. But it was good for Eve, probably, though it was hard to believe that when she was falling apart in his arms.

Finally, Eve’s sobs trailed off into little sniffling hiccups, and eventually Travis laid a hand on her back. “Hey,” he said softly. “I saw some pretty cool rocks over there, you wanna come play with me while we let Nolan talk to your mom and dad for a minute?”

She sniffed once more but sat back a little and nodded. She just held her arms up, and Travis picked her up with a _whoosh_ right off Nolan’s lap.

Nolan listened to them walk off and then leaned over, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He’d never been particularly religious, and while he didn’t really believe that Mikey and Olivia were actually looking down on them or whatever, sometimes he liked to pretend they were because it sure as hell made him feel better.

He sucked in a shaky breath and let himself actually feel the dull ache that he usually shoved down so he could get through the day. It wasn’t as raw as it once was, or as pervasive, but if he thought about it, the pain was right there.

His eyes were getting damp under his palms, and after a few minutes, he sucked in a breath and scrubbed his hands over his jeans before he stood up. “I’m trying as hard as I can,” he whispered, laying a hand on Mikey’s gravestone. “I promise.”

Nolan found Travis and Eve behind a nearby cluster of trees where there was a small pond. She still looked more withdrawn than usual and her eyes were red, but she smiled a little and leaned against Nolan. “TK is teaching me to skip rocks.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, look!”

Eve picked up one of the rocks from the pile at her feet and tossed it carefully. Travis cheered when it skipped once.

“Wow, look at that,” Nolan said.

“TK can do it, like, a million times.”

“Well, I’ve had a lot more years to skip rocks than you.”

“Cause you’re old,” she said, without missing a beat. “Are you older than daddy?”

“Yes, he is,” Nolan said. “And don’t let him forget it, Evie.”

“Just for that, I’m making you buy me pancakes,” Travis said.

“Yeah, I’m hungry, can we go eat?” Eve asked.

Nolan didn’t need much encouragement to leave that place.

\------

Eve didn’t nap much anymore, but she looked so exhausted when they got home after lunch that Nolan gently steered her toward her room. He suggested it, and she groaned and leaned against him.

“Just try, okay? It’ll make you feel better, and when you get up, we can watch a movie.”

“With TK?”

He looked over her shoulder at Travis, who nodded.

“Sure,” Nolan said.

She finally nodded. “Can I put my PJs back on? And will you read me a story?”

“Of course.”

_Be right back_, he mouthed at Travis over her head.

Eve fell asleep before he was even halfway done with the book she chose, so he carefully set it on the floor and slid off her bed. He closed the door behind him, and in the living room, Travis was stretched out on the couch, one arm behind his head as he looked at something on his phone.

“I think someone else needs a nap, too.”

Nolan snorted and tucked his hair behind his ears. “Me?”

“Yeah, you should lay down for a while.”

“I don’t have to, we can watch a movie or—”

“I can always take a nap, dude, I’m a fuckin’ pro.”

“Yeah, okay,” Nolan said finally. A nap actually sounded really good.

“Couch, bed?”

Nolan jerked his head toward his bedroom. He still hadn’t told Eve that they were together, and at least he could lock his bedroom door. Nolan probably needed to, like, initiate sex or something, considering they were about to be alone in his bedroom and Eve was asleep, but Travis just walked through the door and started shamelessly examining everything, from his bookshelves to the photos on the wall to the pile of work stuff Nolan had on top of his dresser.

“Could I borrow a pair of sweats? So I don’t have to sleep in my jeans.”

“Uh, sure. Bottom drawer, on the right.”

He shucked his jeans right there, and Nolan watched openly as he rifled through his drawer and picked a pair of sweatpants to put on. The bottoms pooled on the ground a little.

“Bit long there,” Nolan said as he took off his own jeans and got into bed in just his boxers.

“Shut up, you string bean.”

“I’m not a _string bean_,” he scoffed, and Travis grinned.

“I know.”

It was still sunny out, but the lights were off and the blinds were drawn, so it was a strange hazy twilight in his bedroom. Surreal, almost, which fit the mood as Travis climbed into his bed.

He leaned over Nolan and smiled at the framed photo on his nightstand. “Is that from the adoption?”

“Yeah.” That photo, with Eve in her blue dress, never failed to make him smile. “You have to go to court, it’s a whole thing.”

Travis slung an arm around his waist and kissed him, but it was sweet and slow and didn’t seem like it was really heading for anything else. Nolan kissed back, tugging Travis toward him and tangling their legs together.

Some of Travis’s hair had fallen in his face, and Nolan tucked it back behind his ear. “Thanks for coming with us today.”

“Thanks for letting me.”

When Nolan woke up an indeterminate amount of time later, the other side of the bed was empty. He groaned into his pillow and let himself wallow for a second before he got up and put his clothes back on.

He found Eve and Travis in the living room, sitting cross-legged around the coffee table with cards in front of them. Eve tipped her head back to see him. “TK taught me a new card game and how to _bet_,” she said, with relish.

“Oh, did he now?” Nolan said, and Travis grinned at him.

“She’s pretty good, you think you can keep up?”

Nolan sat down and rubbed his hands together. “Deal me in.”

* * *

“Hey, Noley?”

“Uh-huh.”

They were at the store, where Nolan was going over some numbers with his mom while Eve finished her homework—he thought it was ridiculous, personally, that six-year-olds had homework, but what did he know.

“Can I get TK a Christmas present?”

Nolan’s mom gave him a Look, capital letter required, and he slid his gaze away from her toward Eve. “Sure. Do you have any ideas?”

She rested her chin in her hand. “I make really good friendship bracelets.”

“You do, I think that’d be a great gift.”

“Flyers colors!” she yelled. “Orange and black, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Do you think he’d like it?”

“I bet he would.”

Eve slid off her chair. “I’m gonna go ask Janie if she’ll help.”

“So I take it your dates have been going well,” his mom said, after a few minutes of silence had lulled Nolan into thinking that she wouldn’t bring it up. He sighed and set down his pen.

“How did you even know about that?”

“You know better than anyone that Janie cannot keep a piece of family gossip to save her life.”

Nolan barely resisted the urge to thunk his head on the table. “So _everyone_ knows?”

“I think so, yes.”

He whispered a _fuck_ underneath his breath, and his mom didn’t even call him on it.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked, and she just shrugged.

“I figured you would tell us when you’re ready. So it is going well, then?”

“Um, yeah.” Nolan had very little practice talking about relationships with his mother. “Just…trying to take it slow, I guess. Eve likes him.”

“That’s good.”

She didn’t say anything else, and Nolan forced his knee to stop bouncing under the table. “What, no lecture on how I shouldn’t introduce her to someone I’m dating?”

“You have very good judgment. I’m sure you’re handling it well.”

Nolan narrowed his eyes. “Really?”

“Of course. You wouldn’t let Eve spend time with someone that you didn’t think was important.”

“He came with us to the cemetery,” Nolan blurted out. “On the anniversary. She asked him to come, and I didn’t say no.”

His mom didn’t look, like, repulsed or anything and gestured for him to continue. “Okay. And?”

“Don’t you think that’s, like, too soon? I felt bad about it.”

“Was it uncomfortable, do you think it made it harder for Eve?”

“No,” he admitted. “It was fine.”

“Then stop overthinking it,” she said, patting his hand. “What is he doing for the holidays? Do you want to invite him over?”

“No,” Nolan said quickly. Asking Travis to spend Christmas with his entire family didn’t seem very _slow_. “He only gets a couple days off, he’s going back to see his family. I think we’re going to do something for New Year’s.”

Before he forgot, he texted Travis, just to warn him.

_Just fyi I think Eve will have a gift for you_

_Good I have one for her too_

_It better not be a pony or something_

_Fits in a box I swear_

Nolan snorted and when he looked up, his mom was grinning at him, her chin propped in her hand. “Young love, so cute.”

“Oh my god, stop.”

“You don’t smile a lot!” she protested over his groans. “It’s nice.”

“I’m not telling you anything ever again.”

She gestured at his phone. “Tell him I want tickets, I’m offended I haven’t been offered any yet.”

Nolan obediently opened their message thread again.

* * *

“Wowwww.”

Nolan smiled down at Eve, who seemed utterly enthralled by the fully-mirrored elevator in Travis’s condo building.

“Why do we have to take an elevator to get to TK’s house?”

“Because he doesn’t live in a house like us, he lives in a condo.”

“What’s a condo?”

“It’s like an apartment that you buy. A lot of different people live in this building.”

“Doesn’t my auntie live in a ‘partment?

“You’re right, she does. I bet his is bigger, though.”

The doors dinged, and Eve skipped out. “Can I knock? Which one is it?”

“I think it’s down this way,” he said, steering her by the shoulders.

Eve knocked on the door and grinned when Travis answered it. “TK!”

“Eve!” he said, with equal enthusiasm as he took off her coat and hung it on a hook next to the door. “How was Christmas, did Santa come?”

“Yes! Did he come here, do you have a tree?”

“Of course I do, I even left it up for you guys, it’s in the living room.”

She trotted off down the hall, and Travis ducked in for a lightning-quick kiss. “Hi, Happy New Year.”

“Hi,” he whispered.

Eve was in the living room, inspecting the tree. There were two gifts underneath it, two identically-wrapped boxes, and Nolan added their two to the pile.

Eve leaned forward to smell the tree and wrinkled her nose. “You have a _fake_ tree?”

Travis frowned at her. “Uh…yes. Do you have a real one?”

“Yes! We all went to the forest and Noley cut one down.”

“Wow, how’d I miss that?”

Travis smirked at him over Eve’s head, and Nolan rolled his eyes.

“You were out of town,” she said.

“Well next year I’m asking him to cut one for me, too.”

Nolan swallowed at the thought of _next year_.

“Did Santa find you in Canada?” she asked, and Travis nodded. “Did you see a moose?”

“A moose?”

“We read If You Give a Moose a Muffin the other night,” Nolan said, by way of explanation.

“Not on this trip, but I did see one once,” Travis said, and Eve gasped.

“Really? Is it true they’re really big?”

“Bigger than my _car_.”

“Did you try giving it a muffin?”

“No, I was pretty scared.”

Eve nodded and plopped down in front of the tree. “Can we open presents now?”

“You don’t want to wait until after dinner or anything?” Nolan asked, and she shook her head vigorously. “All right then.”

He and Travis sat down on either side of her. “Good with me.”

“Open yours first,” Eve said, practically vibrating as she handed Travis a small gift bag. “It’s just from me, not from Noley.”

“Good to know,” Travis said with a laugh. He carefully fished around in the tissue paper and pulled out the bracelet. “Oh wow. Is this a friendship bracelet?”

“Yes!”

“That’s so awesome, it’s even orange and black. Can you put it on for me?”

He held out his wrist and Eve carefully tied it on. “You really like it?”

“I love it, thank you, sweetie,” he said, and she grinned. “Now your turn.”

Eve picked up the box that her name on it. “Can I go first?” she asked Nolan, and he nodded.

“Of course you can.”

Eve tore into her box and wiggled with joy as she held up a Flyers jersey. “Carter Hart! And he signed it!”

“I know he’s your second-favorite. But you can’t wear it too often, okay? Cause it’ll make me sad.”

“Only when you’re not around,” she said, with a sneaky smile, and Travis huffed.

“Fine, fine. There’s something else in there, too.”

Eve unfolded the jersey further, and a brochure fluttered out. “The children’s museum!”

“Yeah, it’s a membership, so you guys can go whenever you want.”

“Will you come with us?”

“Of course, whenever I can.”

“Thank you,” she said, leaning over for a hug.

“My turn now?” Nolan asked, then unwrapped his box much more sedately than Eve had. It was also a jersey, one of Travis’s, and he snorted as he held it up. “Oh, wow, thanks.”

Travis grinned. “Since you don’t have one.”

“Now we can match!” Eve said.

“You’re right, baby girl, we can.”

Travis picked up his gift from Nolan and shook it. He was clearly closer to Eve than Nolan on the present-opening spectrum. He ripped into the paper, opened the box, and grinned. “Oh wow.”

Eve leaned over. “Are those ties? They’re pretty.”

“Yeah, your dad always makes fun of me because I only have two.”

“Well now you have a few more,” he said, and Travis laughed.

“Thank you so much, they’re really nice.”

His smile was warm, and Nolan almost had to look away. “You’re welcome.”

Travis stood up and gathered up some of the wrapping paper. “You want some champagne? It’s New Year’s, after all.”

“Sure.” Nolan had to drive home later, but he could have a glass or two. Travis opened a cabinet by the fridge, and Nolan could see the champagne flutes at the top. “You need me to get those?”

Travis glared at him over his shoulder, and Nolan grinned as he watched him go up on his toes. He took down three and held the champagne bottle out to Eve. “You wanna open it?” he asked her, and she nodded. “It’s fun, I’ll show you how.”

“Be careful,” Nolan said, but Travis was already kneeling beside her holding the bottle with a towel over the top.

“Wiggle it just like that, eh. You’re gonna need to tug pretty hard until it—”

She giggled when the top popped off, and Travis used the towel to wipe up the overflow before it hit the floor. “Can I have some?” she asked.

“No,” Nolan interjected. “Adults only. You wouldn’t like it, anyway.”

“I have sparkling cider in the fridge, I bet you’ll like that better,” Travis said as he poured the champagne. Eve giggled at the bubbles, and Nolan smiled as Travis taught her how to toast.

They ordered pizza for dinner and then Eve fell asleep well before midnight, curled up in Travis’s big armchair. Nolan felt brave enough to slide closer on the couch and get his arm around his shoulders. Travis let out a little noise and curled into him, tugging a throw blanket over their laps.

“Sorry, I know I probably should’ve checked with you about the gift, but—”

“No,” Nolan said, cutting him off. “No, it was really great. She loves it.”

“Yeah?”

“For sure.”

“And that jersey wasn’t your real gift. By the way.”

“It wasn’t?”

Travis shook his head. He fished for something in his pocket and then reached for Nolan’s wrist, fastening on a watch. It wasn’t crazy flashy or showy or anything, but it was nice, undoubtedly, and Nolan preferred not to think about how much it must’ve cost. He felt a little bad about his gift now.

“Wow.”

Travis was looking down at the watch, not at him. “Do you like it? It looks good.”

Nolan twisted his wrist, checking it out. “Yeah, I really do.” He tipped Travis’s face up to kiss him, gentle and soft. “Thank you.”

“I love my ties.”

“You’re impossible to buy for, you know.”

“I’m going to think of you every time I wear them,” he said, then lowered his voice. “And maybe you can tie me up with one sometime.”

“Jesus,” Nolan hissed, and Travis muffled his laugh into Nolan’s chest.

“So are there, like, pictures of you cutting down that tree, or—”

Nolan stifled a laugh, trying to stay quiet. “What, do you have some weird Paul Bunyan fetish I should know about or something?”

“No,” Travis protested, slouching down a little more against his chest. “I was just, y’know, wondering.”

Nolan got a hand in his hair and tugged. “You weirdo.”

“You like it,” Travis said confidently.

“I admit nothing.”

* * *

Nolan was working late one night in his room when Travis called him. They didn’t talk on the phone that often, just every once in a while when he was on the road.

“Hello?” he rasped, through a yawn. There was no immediate response, and Nolan pulled his phone away from his ear to double-check that it was actually Travis calling. “Trav?”

“Hey,” Travis said, sounding a little stretched-out. “You sound good.”

Nolan smiled at the ceiling, since there was no one here to see. “Are you drunk?”

“No!” Travis said, indignant. “I had, like, two drinks at dinner.”

“Mhmm,” Nolan said.

“Were you asleep? The time difference, sorry I—”

“No.” Nolan yawned again and tossed his iPad to the other side of the bed. “I was just looking at some numbers for the store.”

“It’s like…11 there.”

“So?”

“The work never stops, huh.”

“It stops now cause I’m fuckin’ tired.”

Travis hummed. “Are you in bed?”

His voice was a little lower then, and it flowed through Nolan, settling in his gut and making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He swallowed before he talked. “Yeah. Are you?”

“Uh-huh.”

He didn’t say anything else after that, and Nolan took another breath. “So why’d you call me?”

“Cause I missed you.”

Nolan stretched out on the bed, arching up until there was a satisfying stretch in his back. “Oh, yeah?”

“Missed you a _lot_,” he said, popping the last word, and Nolan could see more clearly where this was going.

“So what’re you wearing?”

Travis groaned. “You’re, like, the only person in the world who can say that and not sound ridiculous.”

“Why me?”

“Cause you sound like a fuckin’ phone sex operator.”

Nolan snorted and got up to double-check that his bedroom door was locked. He also turned off the overhead light and flipped on the lamp because this felt like a dim light kind of situation. “Yeah? Pretty sure you’re the only one who thinks that, bud. How much should I charge you?”

“You haven’t done anything yet.”

“Well you haven’t told me what you’re wearing.”

“Nothing,” he said, and Nolan could hear his smile through the phone.

“_Nothing_ nothing?”

“That’s correct. What about you?”

“Just a pair of sweats.”

“No shirt, no underwear?”

“Just a pair of sweats,” he repeated, and Travis groaned as if he’d actually said something sexy. Nolan rested a hand low on his stomach, scratching at the hair there.

“I was looking at your pictures.”

Nolan blew out a slow breath out through his nose. He was getting hard, just in anticipation, and he idly rubbed at his dick over his sweatpants. “Yeah? You still look at those?”

“Only, like, every time I jerk off,” he said, and Nolan’s dick twitched.

“Fuck. Really?”

They’d sent pictures back and forth a couple more times, after the first one, but they’d never done _this_, over the phone.

“Yeah,” Travis said. “What about you, with mine?”

“When you send ‘em, yeah.”

“You don’t save them? That hurts, man.”

“Uh, no, I have a kid who’s on my phone all the time.”

Travis laughed. “Good point.”

“Guess I need to send you more, then,” Nolan said, and Travis groaned. He could hear Travis’s hand over the phone, and it was slick. “You have lube?”

“No, just the hotel lotion. My dick’s gonna smell, like, _aggressively _flowery.”

“Hot.”

“Right?” Travis sighed, right into the phone. “Anyway, I was looking at your pics and thought I could maybe have the real thing.”

Nolan smiled. “If you think this is the real thing, then—”

“Shut up, you know what I mean.”

Nolan pushed his sweats down to his thighs and sighed, relaxing into the bed as he wrapped a hand around himself. “Fuck,” he breathed.

“Tell me what you want.” There was a desperate thread in Travis’s voice that made Nolan want to hold him down and fuck him up. In, like, a loving way. “Anything.”

“Anything?” he repeated.

“Yeah, yeah. Just tell me.”

Nolan swallowed again and closed his eyes. “Wasn’t kidding before. About you fucking me.”

Travis groaned. “_Fuck_. God, yeah. I just wanna see you, Nol, see you in my bed, be able to touch you. I wanna fuck you, want you to hold me down, you’re so…”

He just listened and stroked himself as Travis’s words trailed off into little gasps. It’d only take, like, two strokes, Nolan was so close, but he took his hand off his dick instead and let the feeling throb through him, in time with Travis’s hitching little whines on the phone as he came.

“Ho-ly _fuck_,” he said after a minute, drawing out the words. “Jesus. Nolan, that was—”

His cheeks were burning now, equal parts embarrassment and arousal, and his hand tightened on his dick. “Trav, I gotta…”

“Yeah, baby, c’mon.”

_Baby_. God. Nolan hissed through his teeth and sped up his hand. “I’m—”

“Come for me, baby, please.”

Nolan arched up into his grip and groaned as he spilled over his hand, letting Travis’s chatter flow over him. “Fuck, fuck.”

“So I think I’m ready for the real thing,” Travis said, and Nolan laughed, swiping an arm over his forehead. His heart was still hammering.

“When do you get back?”

Travis groaned. “I don’t even fuckin’ _know_. This is our longest road trip of the year, I think.”

Fucking figures, Nolan thought. Cockblocked by the NHL. “Hang on,” he said, pulling his phone away from his face to quickly google the schedule. “Last game is on Thursday.”

“Come over Friday night, then, if you can. I’ll make dinner.”

Nolan exhaled. The rational, dad side of his brain was cautious about it, wondering if this was too much, too fast, and he’d have to find someone to watch Evie overnight, which felt like a big step, but he just—

Wanted to.

“Yeah. I’ll try to make that work.”

* * *

Travis opened his front door with a grin, but he barely got out a greeting before Nolan pushed him back into the apartment, cupped his face in his hands, and kissed him. Travis sputtered in surprise but kissed back, getting his hands on Nolan’s hips and going up on his toes to press against him harder.

Finally Nolan had to breathe, and he tucked his nose against Travis’s cheek, his face hot, embarrassed by his own eagerness. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I just—”

“_Sorry_?” Travis was gratifyingly breathless. “Shit, this is like, the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Come back here.”

Nolan did, sliding a hand into Travis’s hair, and Travis wrapped both arms tight around Nolan’s waist as he tipped his face up and leaned into him. He’d really wormed himself into Nolan’s life over the past few months, and this was the longest they’d gone without seeing each other since they started dating. Nolan could admit that he missed him.

“I really did make dinner. All by myself.”

“I believe you,” Nolan said against his mouth. “Do you want to eat now?”

Travis shook his head and hooked his index fingers through the belt loops of Nolan’s jeans, towing him forward without breaking the kiss. Nolan kicked off his shoes and shed his jacket, trying to shake it off his wrists behind him while Travis clutched as his hips.

The floor underneath his feet turned from hardwood to carpet, but Travis stepped back as soon as Nolan got a hand on the warm skin under his shirt. “Motherfucker, I gotta turn off the oven, hang on.”

Travis spun and trotted away, leaving Nolan standing there in his bedroom, breathing hard. He scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair, trying to calm down a little bit, and stripped down to his boxers.

“My _god_,” Travis said when he got back. He pushed Nolan to sit on the end of the bed and straddled his thighs. “I’ve been waiting for fucking ever.”

Nolan swallowed and twisted his head to the side, giving Travis more space where he was nosing up his neck. “Sorry.”

“That wasn’t a complaint.” Travis squeezed his ribs and slid a thumb over his nipple. Nolan arched up against him, and Travis grinned, his hair falling in his face, before he did it again. “Don’t apologize. I wanted to do this ever since I first saw you.”

“Jesus.” Nolan kissed him again. “Same.”

“First I saw you and I just thought you were hot.” Nolan tucked his face into Travis’s neck, kissing and sucking at the warm skin there, so he didn’t have to look at him. “Like, _really_ hot, don’t get me wrong. And then I—oh, fuck.”

Nolan grinned and rubbed at Travis’s dick again, kneading him gently over his soft sweatpants. “And then you what?”

Travis flat-out whined and pushed his hips into Nolan’s hand, but he kept talking. “And then I got to know you, and I found out what an awesome person you are, how good of a _dad_ you are, and—”

“I want you all the time,” Nolan admitted because it was the truth. “It’s like—”

Travis’s mouth was on his again, and then there was no talking for a while, just hands on skin as Nolan yanked Travis’s henley off. His hair was a fucking mess, his cheeks flushed, and Nolan didn’t want to think about what his own face looked like.

They didn’t even make it onto the bed properly, Travis just slipped down to his knees between Nolan’s legs and worked his boxers down. His mouth was wet and hot, his grip tight, and it had been a long time since Nolan had sex with anyone. That was a bad combination, and way sooner than he’d like, he had to tighten his grip on Travis’s hair to pull him off.

Travis groaned, his eyes glazed over. His mouth was red and wet, and Nolan gracelessly pulled him up, laying back and tugging Travis over him. His mouth was also _hot_, literally, and the kiss was sloppy as Travis rearranged himself enough to get a hand in between them, wrapping warm slick fingers around both of their dicks.

“_Fuck_,” Nolan got out, twisting away from Travis’s mouth so he could breathe for a second. Travis went to his neck without missing a beat, kissing under his ear. “Trav, I’m—”

“Yeah,” Travis said, mostly nonsensical. “C’mon, baby.”

Nolan came first, but Travis was the one who groaned louder. He wanted to do something, wanted to touch him, but he was still coming down, still breathing hard, and could only watch as Travis hung his head, his lower lip caught between his teeth, and added to the mess on Nolan’s stomach.

Travis slumped down over him and it wasn’t as uncomfortable as it should have been, probably—like a heavy blanket that kept him warm as the sweat cooled off his skin. Travis was quiet for once, which was novel, until Nolan’s stomach grumbled audibly, and he laughed. He shifted onto his back and tried to smooth back his hair, which was a fucking disaster from Nolan’s hands.

“I was promised food,” he said, poking Travis in the shoulder. “Also, I need a fucking shower.”

“So demanding,” Travis said, without even opening his eyes. “But I got you, baby.”

Nolan rolled over, covering Travis with his dead weight until he was laughing and trying to shove him off.

The dinner he’d made wasn’t even ruined, which was a bonus. It was some kind of baked pasta casserole thing that was pretty good, especially as they ate it on the couch, Travis’s bare shoulder pressed up against his.

“This is pretty good,” he admitted.

“Thanks. I can cook like, four things.”

“Wow, I’m so honored.”

“That means you’re making breakfast in the morning, right?” he said, and Nolan laughed.

“Sure.”

“So since you just came in here and tackled me—”

“I didn’t _tackle_ you,” Nolan protested. “And you didn’t seem to be complaining.”

“Oh I wasn’t. But like, hi. How’re things, how’s Eve?”

“She’s good, except she’s had this cold thing for the past couple days.” He glanced over at Travis and grimaced. “Sorry, I probably should’ve…I mean, I feel fine but—”

Travis laughed and smacked Nolan’s abs with the back of his hand. “Worth it, I don’t care if I get the fuckin’ flu.”

They watched Netflix for a bit until Travis climbed into Nolan’s lap and got a hand in his hair, tugging until he could get at his neck. “You said something about a shower?”

Nolan slid his hands up Travis’s thighs, under the edge of the shorts he was wearing. “Yeah.”

Travis’s shower was huge, and Nolan pressed him up against one tile wall, holding both of Travis’s wrists above his head with one hand while the other jerked him off. He looked kind of dead after that and left Nolan to his own devices, but it wasn’t too bad once Travis recovered a little bit and crowded close, mouthing at his chest and shoulders and muttering things that Nolan would rather not repeat. At least he could blame his red face on all the steam.

“So we’ve never discussed this,” Travis said, once they were drying off, “and it’s kind of a big deal.”

Nolan froze in the midst of toweling his hair. There were…a lot of possibly bad things they haven’t talked about yet. “Uh, what.”

He lowered his towel, and Travis was grinning. “What side of the bed do you sleep on?” Nolan rolled his eyes and tossed his towel at Travis’s face. “That’s, like, a compatibility issue that can’t be fixed, I don’t think.”

“The right.”

“Oh, thank fuck. You can stay.”

“What would you have done if I said the left?” he asked as he got into Travis’s bed and stretched out on the left side.

“Thrown you right out.” Travis shoved him over without too much effort—Nolan sometimes forgot how strong he was, and it was always a pleasant surprise. Too bad he’d already come twice tonight. “So good answer.”

\------

Nolan had no idea what time it was when his phone rang. It was still dark out, that was for sure, and it felt like he’d been in the middle of the deepest part of his sleep cycle. It took him a few tries to get the phone off the nightstand and up to his face.

“H’lo,” he slurred.

“Nolan!”

It was Janie, and she started talking rapidly, too fast for Nolan’s half-asleep brain to process.

“Janie,” he said loudly, to cut her off. He got an elbow underneath himself, panic crawling up his throat. “Janie, slow down. What’s happening.”

“Her temp is really high, Nol, like 103, and she’s not breathing very well and I called the doctor’s number you left and they said to bring her to the ER because it might be pneumonia.”

He felt like he was going to throw up. The bedside lamp clicked on, so Travis must’ve woken up, but Nolan didn’t look over. “Where are you right now?”

“In the car, on our way to the hospital.”

“I’ll meet you there.” Nolan tried to get out of bed and nearly fell when his foot got caught in the sheets. “I’m closer than you are, so I shouldn’t be too far behind you. Call me when you get there.”

“Nol.” Travis reached for his arm, but Nolan shook him off.

“I gotta—”

“Babe, you need to tell me what’s going on.”

He rifled through the pile of clothes next to the bed, his hands shaking. Where was his fucking _shirt_. “That was Janie,” he said mechanically. “Evie’s sick, maybe pneumonia, they’re going to the ER.”

“Holy shit. Okay, let me—”

“No. Go back to bed, I just need to—”

“Nolan.” Travis’s voice was firm, as was his grip on Nolan’s arms. He was out of bed and in front of him now, somehow. “I’m not letting you drive yourself anywhere right now. I won’t come in with you if you don’t want me to, I’ll just drop you off, but you’re not driving right now, seriously.”

Nolan didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to actually argue with him, so he just kept getting dressed. Travis pulled on sleep pants and a hoodie and stuck his feet into a pair of slides, even though it was fucking freezing out.

Nolan’s jacket was still lying on the floor in the hallway, and his cheeks burned as he leaned down to pick it up. The elevator ride down to the parking garage was silent, and Nolan checked his phone about a dozen times to see if Janie had called, even though he’d obviously know when she did.

Once in the car, Travis cracked a giant yawn and shook his head. “Okay, where we going?”

“The children’s hospital on 34th Street. It’s on the Penn campus.”

The drive wasn’t long, especially since Travis drove fast through the empty streets. He flicked his blinker on when they started seeing signs for the ER.

“You want me to park first or…”

Nolan grimaced. “Someone will probably, like, recognize you and—”

“I don’t give a shit about that.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I really don’t.”

Nolan swallowed. There was no way he could manage Evie and the overwhelming, confusing feelings he had for Travis at the same time. “No. I can’t—I just can’t, okay? Can you just drop me off?”

Travis’s face closed off, feature by feature, and he nodded. “Okay.”

Nolan wanted to deal with that, but he was also probably going to have a panic attack if he didn’t get eyes on his kid in the next sixty seconds. So he slid out of the car, said “I’ll call you later” over his shoulder, and closed the door.

He jogged into the ER and spotted them immediately, Janie sitting in a chair with Eve on her lap and a nurse crouched in front of her. Eve saw him over Janie’s shoulder and started crying as she reached for him. Nolan swooped her up, and the nurse gave him a sympathetic smile. “What’s her name?”

“Eve Patrick,” he said, and she checked something on her clipboard.

“And yours?”

“Nolan Patrick.”

She nodded. He was always nervous that some authority figure was going to protest, going to claim that he wasn’t her _real_ dad. He could prove it if he ever needed to, obviously, he had the paperwork, but most people just saw the matching eyes and the matching last names and didn’t even question it. Nolan loved it and felt guilty about it in equal measure.

“Her pediatrician is Dr. Oliver,” Janie said. “I called her office and they’re the ones that told us to come in, said it might be pneumonia.”

“Yes, they called ahead. Come on back, let’s get her checked out.”

They didn’t have to wait long for the doctor, who did a thorough check-up of Eve and then wanted to do some additional tests. She wouldn’t let him go with Eve for the chest x-rays, though, so he was left waiting in the remarkably uncomfortable chairs in the exam room.

“She’s gonna be okay,” Janie said, echoing the doctor’s words. Her voice was thick, though, so Nolan wrapped an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

“Thank you, so much.”

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Stop it. None of this is your fault. I never should have left her.”

Janie sniffed. “She was totally fine when she went to bed, and even when I checked on her before I went to sleep. Then I, when I got up to go to the bathroom, I could hear her, her breathing was so loud.”

Nolan thought about his baby girl laying in bed struggling to breathe while he was across town fucking Travis or whatever, and he wanted to vomit. He rested his head in his hands and sucked in a shaky breath.

“She’s gonna be fine,” he repeated, mostly in a vain attempt to convince himself. That’s what the doctor said, anyway—bacterial pneumonia, probably, which would require IV antibiotics and some breathing treatments but was very treatable. She’d said Eve could likely go home later that day, even.

“The first night I’ve spent away from her, ever, and she goes to the ER,” he said to the floor. “Don’t you think that’s, like, a sign?”

“No, that’s not a _sign_, you moron.”

Nolan sighed in frustration and sat back again, scrubbing his hand through his hair. “But—”

“No buts. You’re allowed to have a personal life.”

Nolan wasn’t so sure.

* * *

“Is TK your boyfriend?” Eve asked, out of the blue, and Nolan froze. She’d been home from the hospital for four days, and they were watching a Flyers game on TV. Travis had just scored, so maybe it wasn’t _totally_ out of the blue.

Nolan very pointedly did not look at his mother, who was reading a magazine on the other side of the couch and most certainly listening to their conversation. “How do you know the word boyfriend?” he asked.

Eve rolled her eyes, and Nolan had a sudden, vivid preview of how the teenage years were going to go.

“Molly has a boyfriend, duh.”

“Oh, she does? Do _you_ have a boyfriend?”

“No, the boys in my class are gross.”

“That sounds right.”

“Don’t avoid the question,” she said, and Nolan smiled. More and more often as she got older, she said these things, phrases and vocabulary she must have picked up from somewhere, that made her sound like a mini-adult. He liked it—when she wasn’t grilling him about his relationship status.

“Do you like TK?” he asked instead.

Eve nodded. “He’s funny. And he talks to me like a grown-up.” She wriggled until her head was in Nolan’s lap and she was looking up at him. “So?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I was kind of mean to him the other day.”

“Did you say you’re sorry?”

He was getting schooled by a six-year-old. “Um.”

“Daddy!”

“Grown up relationships are complicated,” he tried.

She sighed and twisted around so she could see the TV. “I miss him, he hasn’t come to see me since I’ve been sick.”

Oh god. Nolan was actually the worst dad on the planet.

“That’s totally my fault, okay?” That wasn’t a lie, at least. He combed his fingers through her hair. “He wanted to come see you, I promise. I asked him to wait until you were feeling better.”

That was apparently good enough for Eve; she yawned. “You should say you’re sorry.”

“You’re right, I will.”

She dozed through the rest of the first period, then Nolan nudged her awake to go to bed properly. They went through their regular bedtime routine, which now also included taking Eve’s temperature and giving her her meds, and after she was asleep, Nolan found his mom in the kitchen, in front of the sink.

He nudged her aside. “You brought us dinner, you don’t have to clean up, too.”

“I don’t mind,” she said, nudging him right back. “I’ll wash, you dry.”

“Deal.” He picked up a towel, and he’d only dried one damn plate before she brought it up.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He sighed. No, he did not. “Janie was the one who brought Evie to the ER that night,” he said anyway. “I was with Travis.”

“I know.”

“I…he was the one who drove me to the hospital. He wanted to come in and see Evie and everything, but I said no, I got kinda mad about it.”

“Why did you say no?”

“Because it felt—it felt like a family thing, you know. It seemed too serious.”

“Are you two _not_ serious?”

Nolan grimaced. “I don’t know. I’m afraid that Eve is going to get too attached and—”

“Just Eve?”

Goddamn moms.

“Yes,” he lied.

“Children are incredibly resilient. Even _if_, say, you were together for a couple years and then you weren’t, she would be fine. She would get over it. I mean, I probably wouldn’t encourage introducing her to a revolving door of people, but—”

“Mom,” he complained, and she laughed.

“But you would never do that. You’re allowed to think about what _you_ want, you know.”

“But I—”

“Nolan. You gave up your entire life for that girl, so you’re—”

“No, I didn’t,” he said because it wasn’t true. He couldn’t imagine his life without her, she _was_ his life.

“You know what I meant.”

“Eve’s just going to get more attached, more than she already is, and then we break up and I…”

Nolan trailed off and shook his head.

“Well,” she said, drying her hands on a towel, “if you keep holding him at arm’s length, then you’re probably going to get that outcome anyway. So maybe you should let him be a part of that decision.”

His mom left shortly after dropping that little knowledge bomb, and Nolan flopped down on the couch, watching the game and spinning his phone in his hands. In the few months that he and Travis had been dating, Nolan was pretty sure they’d barely ever gone, like, 12 hours without talking. But right now, they hadn’t spoken at all in four days.

Travis had texted him a few times the day they were at the hospital, checking on Eve, and Nolan responded only once, just to say that she was okay and probably going home that night. Travis had texted after that, too, but Nolan ignored him. He felt like a real asshole about it—_especially_ when Nolan’s car mysteriously reappeared in his driveway, after he left it at Travis’s that night—but he didn’t know what to say, especially after how he left things.

But if a six-year-old knew how to apologize, he could probably figure it out. He opened their message thread and winced at the string of unanswered messages from Travis, which had pretty quickly trailed off once Nolan stopped responding. 

_Eve says thanks for the goal, she’s finally feeling a little better_

_I’m so sorry about the other night_

It was easier to text when Nolan knew that Travis probably wouldn’t be responding for at least another hour.

_And for the radio silence since then _

_Come over tomorrow? Let me apologize in person_

He yawned and tugged the throw blanket off the back of the couch. He might as well get comfortable while he waited for the game to be over. What he _should_ do was put his phone on silent until the morning and go to bed, since he had barely been sleeping, but he knew himself better than that.

* * *

The doorbell rang the following night, right as they were finishing dinner, and Eve leaned out of her chair as if she could see the door from there. “Who is it?”

Nolan smiled. “I don’t know, why don’t you go get it?”

He was only a few steps behind Eve, but by the time he got to the foyer, she was already in Travis’s arms, holding a giant stuffed Gritty.

“Noley hates Gritty,” Eve was in the middle of saying, and Travis’s mouth dropped open. He looked over, and Nolan couldn’t help but smile, he had missed his dumb face so much.

“You _hate_ Gritty?”

“Hate is a strong word,” Nolan hedged.

“I love him,” Eve said, muffled into its…fur? Hair? The damn thing was nearly as big as she was.

“I saw him yesterday, he says he hopes you’re feeling better.”

Eve scoffed. “Gritty doesn’t _talk_, don’t be silly.”

“He talks to me!” Travis claimed, and Eve narrowed her eyes.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Special privilege, since I’m a Flyer and all.”

Eve still looked a little skeptical, but she twisted until she could look at Nolan. “Can we watch a movie?” she asked.

“Sure.” All of their normal screen time restrictions had flown out the window since Eve’d gotten home from the hospital.

“Have you seen Frozen?” she asked seriously, and Travis shook his head.

“Uh, no. I haven’t.”

Eve shrieked in surprise and wriggled until Travis set her down. She ran off toward the den, and Nolan touched Travis’s elbow, feeling awkward. “Hi,” he said. “Thanks for coming over.”

Travis smiled at him, at least, so things could be worse. “Course. I—”

“Daddy! I can’t find the remote.”

Nolan sighed. “Hang on.”

He got the movie set up and made popcorn, even though they’d just eaten dinner. Eve’s appetite was coming back slowly, but she had lost weight for sure so Nolan was trying to feed her as much as he could.

“What do you like in your popcorn?” he called out, and Travis popped his head into the kitchen, his face quizzical.

“Huh? Like, besides butter?”

“We usually put M&Ms in it,” Eve said helpfully, standing on her toes to see into the bowl. “It’s really good.”

“Then I’ll trust you. Can I help?”

“Nope,” Nolan said as he handed him the bowl. He wasn’t totally sure how to act around Travis—he didn’t know if he’d come over just to see Eve, maybe, and if he was angry, which he totally had a right to be. Eve was a good buffer, though, literally and figuratively. She sat in between them on the couch, holding the popcorn, and didn’t seem to notice the tension at all. And since Nolan had seen this movie approximately a hundred times, he could relax and try to zone out.

Eve got up to go to the bathroom and brush her teeth near the end of the movie, and when she came back, she sprawled herself across Travis’s lap and touched his wrist.

“You’re still wearing my friendship bracelet,” she said.

“Of course I am. You’re still my friend, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” she said, giggling as he tickled her. “You like it?”

“People ask me about it sometimes, and I say my friend Eve made it for me.”

“You can call me Evie,” she said through a yawn, and Travis’s eyes were wide when he met Nolan’s gaze. Nolan shrugged, a tiny smile curling at the corner of his mouth, and Travis grinned.

“Thanks, sweetie.” He ran a hand over her hair, and a few minutes later, when she looked to be asleep, Nolan reached for the remote.

“You want me to change it?”

“No way, dude, I gotta see how it ends. There’s only, like, 20 minutes left.”

Nolan snorted but sat back, scooting closer into Eve’s vacated spot to lean against Travis’s other side. He slouched down, kicking his feet up on the coffee table, and smiled when Travis hooked an arm around his neck and kissed his hair.

When the movie was over, Nolan leaned over Eve and touched her shoulder. “Wake up, baby girl.”

She groaned and shook her head without opening her eyes. “No.”

“Yep. Time for bed.”

“Can you tuck me in?” she asked Travis, and he blinked down at her.

“Uh, sure. Of course.”

He picked her up, and Nolan trailed after them.

“You gotta check the closet, okay,” she said to Travis.

“For what?”

“For _ghosts_.”

“Oh, right. Duh.”

Nolan sat down in the hallway and listened to Travis put her to bed. He checked the closet and under the bed, pronouncing them ghost-free after what sounded like a very thorough search. Eve picked Puff, her big stuffed penguin, to sleep with that night, and read Travis one of her favorite books about an owl who learned how to make friends. Travis asked very earnest questions about everything, and god, Nolan was an idiot.

Travis closed the door behind himself quietly and looked surprised to see him there, sitting outside Eve’s door with his arms hooked around his knees. “Whoa, hey.” Travis sat down next to him, their shoulders pressed close together. “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry,” he said, mostly into his arm as he hid his face. “I’m just—really fuckin’ tired. I haven’t been sleeping a lot, this is the first time Evie’s really been sick, and I was such an ass to you and—”

“No,” Travis interrupted. “Don’t worry about me. Like, not at all.”

“But—”

“No, dude, your kid was in the fucking hospital. I get it.”

Nolan shook his head. “Still. I…you deserve to be pissed.”

“I wasn’t mad. I just—” Travis sighed. “I just thought I was a part of it, you know?”

“You are,” Nolan said quickly. “Or, at least, I think so. I was just totally freaking out.”

“About what?”

Nolan rested his chin on his knee. There was basically nothing he’d rather do than _not_ talk about this, but…but Travis had shown up, after Nolan had basically ignored him, so this was probably the least that he deserved. “I dunno. We’ve never really talked about, like, what we are, if we’re serious or whatever.”

“You think we aren’t serious?”

Nolan shrugged. “I didn’t want to push that on you.”

“Of course I want that. I thought…I mean, I kinda thought that’s what we were doing here.”

“I thought so, too. At least, that’s what I wanted. Or want, I guess. But—but, like, you do so much for us, what do I even do for you.”

Travis laughed. “What do _you_ do for _me_? Are you kidding? You guys are, like, the best fucking thing in my life. You have to put up with my weirdass schedule and I don’t get to see you as much as I want. And even if you did nothing for me, this isn’t, like, a transactional thing.” He bumped his shoulder against Nolan’s. “I wanna be in this. For real. I’m, like, all in, dude.”

“But—” Nolan let out a strange huff of a laugh. “But _why_. You could have anyone, you could have someone who, like, doesn’t have a kid or a complicated situation or—”

“I don’t want anyone else. You’re a grumpy weirdo, but I love you, okay? I know it’s probably, like, way too early to say that, but I love you and I love Evie and I love how much you love her and I love how seriously you take everything and—”

Nolan couldn’t listen to much more of that without spontaneously combusting, so he tipped forward, cupping Travis’s cheek in his palm to bring their mouths together. Travis kissed him back immediately, his fingers tightening around the back of Nolan’s neck.

“Can you, um,” Nolan started, then had to kiss him again. “Stay, yeah? Do you need to go?”

Travis grinned as he stood up, tugging Nolan by the hand. “Not going anywhere.”

“Good.” The flipping in Nolan’s stomach was going haywire, especially when he tucked a strand of hair behind Travis’s ear and he twisted to kiss his wrist. “Let me go lock up and stuff, go get in bed.”

“Aye aye, captain,” Travis said, complete with a salute, and Nolan rolled his eyes. He turned off all the lights, made sure the front door was locked, and took three surreptitious deep breaths in the kitchen before he went back and found Travis mostly naked in his bed. A sight he could probably get used to.

Nolan stripped down to his briefs and crawled onto the bed over him, pressing him down against the sheets. “You’re exhausted,” Travis said, even as he arched up under his weight. “We can just go to bed, don’t you wanna sleep?”

“Yeah, after I blow you.”

Travis groaned. “Shit.”

“Gotta be quiet, though,” he reminded him, and Travis looked so conflicted that Nolan almost laughed. “Is that a no?”

“_No_. I’m not that loud.”

Nolan hummed and worked his fingers under the waistband of his boxers. “That’s not what I remember.”

Travis got hands in his hair and they got derailed a little while making out, but eventually Nolan pulled himself away to get between his legs.

Every time Travis made a noise above a whisper, Nolan stilled or pulled off entirely, petting his thighs or pressing wet kisses to his hips. Once, after a particularly loud whine, Nolan smacked him, right where his thigh met the curve of his ass. It was light, barely enough to sting, but Travis gasped and jerked, his dick twitching.

Nolan looked up at him, one eyebrow raised. Travis was red and kind of hiding his face, twisting into the pillow, but he was grinning. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.” He did it again, and Travis stayed beautifully silent, even as his eyes fluttered shut and his hips jerked up, nearly enough to dislodge Nolan. He pressed harder with the arm that was holding Travis’s hips down. “Be still, don’t make me tie you down.”

That got another noise, but Travis caught it behind his teeth, mostly, and Nolan rewarded him with his mouth. It didn’t take long before Travis was sweaty and shaking, his jaw clenched as he bit his lips raw. “Nol,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and barely there. “Baby.”

He pulled off again and used his hand, loose enough to be nothing but frustrating. “You good?”

Travis nodded, frantic. “Can you, uh—”

He didn’t finish his sentence, and Nolan licked across the head of his dick, just once. “What? What do you want?”

“Do the thing.”

“Do what?” he asked. Travis groaned, and Nolan kissed his thigh in apology.

“I’m not being a dick, I really don’t know.”

Travis fisted his hands in the sheets next to his hips. “C’mon.”

Ah.

Nolan readjusted his weight on his knees and carefully circled Travis’s wrists with his fingers, holding tight. “Be still,” he warned, and Travis nodded, his lip caught between his teeth.

He still took it slow, a little clumsy without the use of his hands, but Travis didn’t seem to mind. He was tense all over, his abs clenched, and while part of Nolan missed the noises, it was also really hot to hear him try to keep them back, just harsh exhales and little gasps.

Nolan was really hard about it, actually, but he didn’t have any hands or even enough coordination to grind against the bed. So he sped up suddenly, sucking harder, and Travis came without a hint of warning, his hips jerking up just enough to choke Nolan a little.

“Fuck, sorry,” he gasped, and Nolan coughed, licking his lips.

“S’fine.”

Nolan stayed there, his hands still on Travis’s wrists, until his eyes finally fluttered open. “That was fucking torture,” he hissed, and Nolan wiped his mouth on his shoulder.

“Kinda seemed like you liked it.”

“I can’t even, like, feel my face.”

“_Really_ liked it, then.”

“I need, like—” Travis scrubbed his hands through his hair, messing it up even further. “A Gatorade and a nap. Holy fuck.”

Nolan stripped off his boxers and stretched out next to him, taking his dick in his hand. “I’ll just do this by myself then.”

Travis groaned and rolled toward him, slinging a leg over his thighs. “You have lube?” he said against his lips. Nolan nodded and reached over to dig through the drawer of his nightstand.

“You gonna be able to get it up again, old man?”

Travis rolled his eyes as he flipped the top on the lube and squeezed some onto his hand. “Are you kidding, I came so fucking hard I probably won’t be able to get it up again for, like, two days.”

Nolan tried not to feel smug and failed terribly.

“C’mere.” Travis tugged weakly at his arm.

“You’re so lazy,” he said as he rolled them and leaned down to kiss him.

“Maybe I just like having you on top of me, you ever think of that?”

“I knew that already,” he said, then gasped when Travis took hold of his dick. The fingers of his other hand were slick and skirting around the curve of his ass.

“Can I?”

Nolan nodded against Travis’s shoulder and bit down a little to keep himself from groaning. “Oh, fuck,” he exhaled. “You can—you can do two.”

“Good?”

He nodded. “Not gonna last long,” he admitted, and Travis tightened his grip.

“Good. C’mere, kiss me.”

It wasn’t the most efficient position, probably, and the kiss was sloppier than he’d normally prefer, but both of Travis’s hands were kind of magic and soon Nolan was muffling sounds of his own into Travis’s mouth and coming all over his hand and his stomach.

“Holy shit,” he breathed, and Travis pressed a smacking kiss to his temple.

“Love you,” he said after a minute, “but you’re kinda crushing me.”

Nolan smiled and obediently rolled off, wincing a little. “You literally asked for it.”

Travis went into the en suite and tossed him a washcloth, which he caught neatly. Nolan managed to wipe himself off and watched, bleary-eyed, as Travis pulled his boxers back on and tugged a shirt over his head. Based on how big it was on him, it wasn’t his. “Where you going?” Nolan asked through a yawn.

“Gonna go check on her,” he said over his shoulder, and Nolan had to bury his face in his pillow to avoid showing any more emotion on his face than he already was.

He looked up again when he heard the bedroom door open. “Good?” he asked, and Travis nodded.

“She’s not warm, and her breathing sounds fine.”

He slid back under the sheets, and Nolan yanked the shirt off again before wrapping him in a full-body hug, warm skin pressed up against his everywhere. “I love you, too,” he said into his temple, before he could lose the courage. “I didn’t say it before, but I do. A lot.”

“Thank fuck, I was starting to get worried.”

Nolan kneed him in the thigh, making Travis yelp, and they wrestled for a minute until Nolan yawned and dragged Travis under his arm.

“Do you want me to go?” Travis asked as he fiddled with his pillow, sliding his arm under it.

Nolan shook his head. He’d never wanted anything less. “Stay.”

“She’s a smart kid, Nol, she’s gonna ask questions if I’m here in the morning.”

“She already knows,” he admitted. “She asked me yesterday if you were my boyfriend.”

Travis laughed. “And what’d you say to that?”

“Uh, I said I hoped so but I may have screwed it up.”

“Nah. Gonna have to try harder if you wanna get rid of me.”

Nolan figured he was allowed to smile at that now. “And I think I owe you a breakfast, anyway.”

“That’s right, eh. Definitely gotta collect on that. If you don’t make good eggs, I’m afraid this is over.”

“I make fuckin’ great eggs.”

Nolan yawned again, and Travis palmed his face. “Go to sleep, weirdo.”

“You love me.”

Travis said something in response to that, but Nolan was asleep before he heard what it was.

* * *

** _Several months later_ **

“TK!” Eve screeched, and it jerked Nolan out of sleep. Travis’s head was on his shoulder, and he groaned as he rolled away.

“Wha time s’it?” he slurred.

Nolan yawned and turned over onto his stomach, pulling the comforter higher over his shoulder. “She yelled for _you_, so that sounds like your problem.”

Travis grumbled some more, but it wasn’t actually intelligible so Nolan ignored him and tried to fall back asleep as Travis rolled out of bed and tugged on a hoodie.

It didn’t really work, though, and he squinted into the light as Travis opened the door to come back in the bedroom. “Everything okay?”

“Oh yeah.” He stood at the dresser and started pulling on clothes. “She just wants to go out again.”

Nolan blinked at the ceiling. “It’s Christmas morning, and my daughter wants to go _ice fishing_. What have you done to her?”

Travis cackled and leaned over Nolan on the bed.

“You wanna come?”

“Uh, no.” He enjoyed fishing, but in the summer like a normal person, when there was sun and water and a boat. Not when it was well below freezing and they had to chisel through fucking ice to reach the fish. On the other hand Eve had taken to it like…well, a fish to water. “It’s still early, you can tell her to go back to bed and that you’ll go out later.”

“Nah, I don’t mind.” Travis touched his cheek and leaned closer to kiss his shoulder. “You’ll make breakfast, though, right?”

“Ugh.” Nolan rolled away, further under the covers. “Go away, your hands are like ice.”

“Please,” Travis wheedled, getting one knee up on the bed. “You know I can’t make pancakes.”

That was true.

“And we have to have pancakes,” he continued, “because it’s Christmas.”

“Fine.”

He made a triumphant noise and kissed the blanket mound that Nolan was currently cocooned in. “Awesome. Love you. We won’t be gone long.”

“Don’t fall through the ice,” he said because the dad in him couldn’t resist.

Travis scoffed. “As if I’d ever let her get hurt.”

“I know. Have fun.”

“Dad’s still sleeping!” he yelled, presumably to Eve, as he left their bedroom, and Nolan rolled his eyes.

“Not anymore, asshole,” he grumbled into his pillow.

He dozed a little bit longer but couldn’t actually fall back asleep, so eventually he admitted defeat and just got out of bed to start breakfast. The cabin was fairly small, and the whole thing smelled like fresh Christmas tree.

Eve had started asking lots of thorough, pointed questions about Santa that fall, but Nolan refused to believe this stage was over. So there were still a handful of presents from Santa under the tree that he and Travis had put there last night after she went to bed.

He got the pancake batter made and mostly cooked by the time Eve and Travis came tromping back in, their cheeks red. “Merry Christmas, daddy!”

“Merry Christmas, Evie.” He bent to kiss her head. “Go change back into your PJs and we can open presents.”

“Presents!” she yelled as she ran back to her room. “There are so many.”

“There _are_ so many,” Nolan said to Travis, pointedly. “Please don’t tell me you bought me a car.”

Travis scoffed. “Of course not,” he said, leaning in for a kiss, and Nolan relaxed a little. “Like, I’m _going _to buy you a car. Obviously. But I thought you’d want to pick it out.”

Fuck, Nolan couldn’t tell if he was kidding. “Travis.”

“Hey, it could be worse, I could’ve bought you a house!”

“You love our house,” Nolan countered, and Travis grinned.

“I know, I can’t wait til you let me move in.”

Travis had asked for the first time barely two weeks after they said they loved each other. Nolan had said no because he was a sane person, and he kept saying no, with a smile every time, as Travis kept asking every week or so. He was _basically_ moved in, anyway, and he spent the vast majority of the nights there. It was just a formality, they both knew it, and even though Travis had one already, Nolan had a spare house key wrapped up under the Christmas tree to seal the deal.

“Yeah,” Nolan said, smiling down at his pancakes. “Maybe someday.”

**Author's Note:**

> (nolan would not actually play in the whl if he was from pennsylvania but i think we can all suspend our disbelief there)


End file.
